Myanmar’s energy shortfall is probably the last thing on people’s minds at the moment, as the junta-driven conflict against the people worsens. But a foreign energy expert has just issued a dire warning, so shocking it is hard to take on board.
Guillaume de Langre, who worked for several years in Naypyidaw as an adviser to the Myanmar Ministry of Electricity and Energy (MOEE) told Insight Myanmar in a recent podcast that half of Myanmar’s electricity could evaporate by 2030. And that is in a country that is only currently supporting half of the country’s power needs and where black-outs are the depressing norm.
Just do the maths. It’s not hard. Decades of military regimes, including the current illegal junta, have set the Golden Land up for a serious fall.
Without serious energy development over the next seven years, only 25 per cent or so of the country will be left with power by 2030 to 2032.
That in a nutshell is expert de Langre’s surprising claim.
BEHIND THE TIMES
Economists have long been warning that Myanmar’s energy infrastructure has been subject to serious challenges as it struggled to get out of the Stone Age and roll out in the modern-day world. Coal, gas, hydropower and some wind and solar provide a mismatch for Myanmar that at most powers 50% of the country currently. On a practical level, this is backed by diesel generators sitting outside factories, hotels, and shopping malls.
Energy expert de Langre says that in contrast to Myanmar, other countries in the Southeast Asian region have not been sitting on their laurels. Vietnam, for example, has pushed ahead with solar power and wind turbines and is not regularly plunged into the dark, as so often happens in various areas of Myanmar, including the commercial capital Yangon.
And it is not just the threat of being plunged into darkness. The hot season can become unbearable when the power is down for hours, or even as long as one or two days in parts of the country.
But there is a serious threat – until now unspoken - staring the Myanmar people in the face.
“Most of what was expected, unfortunately, about a year and a half ago, has happened in the energy sector. Myanmar is in a deep energy crisis! In fact, there are multiple energy crises now overlapping each other,” de Langre told Insight Myanmar.
Expert de Langre raised some of these issues with Insight Myanmar in a podcast last year.
Now he is back with an urgent call – Myanmar looks set to go back in time.
NEGATIVE OUTLOOK
The negative outlook he delivers emphasizes two important points: one illustrates how ill-suited the present junta has been to meet the country’s needs since assuming power in a coup in 2021; the other highlights how the current, difficult situation is also partly due to many years of mismanagement and neglect under past military regimes. This crisis is six decades or so in the making.
De Langre explains that the implications of failing to resolve the energy crisis will ultimately hit all sectors, from normal family homes to large factories, and from small businesses to schools to hospitals. He adds that power cuts are already occurring without warning, and which last for days, meaning everything from food to vaccines spoil, while businesses have to close, and surgeries are postponed.
Acknowledging that there were many problems even under the National League for Democracy-led government, de Langre points out that only 50% of Burmese had any kind of electricity access, and even those who did might only enjoy a few hours a day. He says, “there was a sense of, ‘Things are going to get better. We are on this rising trajectory.’”
NO HOPE SHORT-TERM
But there is now no hope that anything will get better anytime soon. In a recent survey, de Langre found that a full 30% of small business owners claimed the power scarcity is a direct threat to their livelihood.
Unfortunately, the bad news doesn’t stop there. As much as 50% of the power grid is fueled by gas that is produced within Myanmar… but which is expected to run out by 2030 or 2032.
“So let me simplify that and make it clear,” he says. “That means that the fuel that is used to produce 50% of the electricity in Myanmar is going to be extinct! It's not being replaced.”
That is where Myanmar could go backwards, with only enough power for about 25% of the country if this assessment proves true.
BIG QUESTION
This raises uncomfortable questions at a time when the Myanmar people are struggling with a bitter conflict, a sinking economy, and a sense of hopelessness.
As de Langre notes, how do you run a country and keep the economy ticking over when within a few years, half the existing power supply disappears?
That 25% figure looms large.
Do you replace it with something else? Do you replace it with other gas resources? Do you import gas from abroad in the form of liquefied natural gas? Do you start producing more gas domestically? Or do you replace that gas power generation with other forms of power such as solar, wind or hydropower?
There is no easy answer, and de Langre highlights several contributing factors as to why: exploring new gas fields takes both time and investment, neither of which the regime has at its disposal; importing liquefied gas requires special terminals to be constructed, and although junta leader Min Aung Hlaing approved these, no progress has yet been made; previous plans for building massive power plants, along with laying out a number of solar panels, fell through once investor confidence plummeted following the coup.
What is more, even amid the imminent scarcity their own country is facing, the military continues to export gas to China and Thailand, and de Langre doesn’t expect them to stop anytime soon given the political advantages that brings the junta.
De Langre claims most of this crisis is the result of the coup, though it has its roots in decades of mismanagement and poor policies and decisions that weren't made at the right time.
GREEN ENERGY?
While there are a number of steps the Myanmar junta could take to begin the rectify the problem, “based on the history of the development of electricity and energy, in general in Myanmar, we can mostly deduct that the military sees energy as a source of rents, as a source of foreign currency to fund itself to buy weapons to fund its cronies and so on and so forth, but has little interest in developing energy in terms of what most governments do, which is develop energy to produce development to improve the life of most people, that is not part of the agenda,” says De Langre.
In a perfect world, one that imagines a stability that Myanmar currently doesn't enjoy, de Langre would suggest prioritizing solar tenders to attract foreign investment, combining this with wind energy in regions like Rakhine State and the Delta. However, he adds that the intermittent nature of solar power requires additional energy strategies, such as storage and hydroelectricity, to ensure a constant power supply. In other words, he advocates a rapid transition to solar and wind energy while also accounting for long-term energy diversification.
Diversification is important as countries cannot go 100% green and solar and wind power are not sufficient enough to power a whole country, and the solar and wind power infrastructure does not last long, and has to be replaced. Panels and wind turbines degrade quite quickly.
CRISIS SHORT-TERM
“Getting out of this crisis is not going to be a short-term issue. It's going to require years and years of good policy planning, smart policy planning, and rebuilding all of that lost trust with investors, both Burmese investors and foreign investors, rebuilding that trust, and that will take time.”
Turning back to the cold reality of the present, de Langre is concerned about what he sees coming. He presents one scenario in which the country's electricity supply progressively declines, and the regime begins to prioritize vital areas such as the capital, military bases, industrial centers, and certain cities, while vast regions experience a significant reduction in power.
He does think, however, that regional investors could still be attracted if the military can guarantee any degree of stability, which would involve a dramatic - and unlikely - pivot by the current military leaders to permit at least some degree of civil liberties, combined with gradual economic freedoms.
While this may just be a fantasy for present-day Myanmar, this is exactly what has been occurring in neighbouring Southeast Asian countries for years: they have also been run mostly by military dictatorships, yet did not lose sight of their development needs.
For example, de Langre points out that there was more solar and wind capacity added in Vietnam in 2021 than the combined power grid of Myanmar in its entire history! “And when you look at road
development, it is the same. When you look at access to clean water, it is the same, that gap with its neighbours is astounding!”
At this stage, the “tragedy of Myanmar”, as de Langre terms it, looks set to be a hard nut to crack.
Just years away lies the specter of lights out for many of the people of Myanmar.
The full podcast can be heard here: https://insightmyanmar.org/complete-shows/2023/8/30/episode-187-a-light-...
